Related papers: The rings of (2060) Chiron: Evidence of an evolvin…
After the discovery of rings around the largest known Centaur object, (10199) Chariklo, we carried out observation campaigns of stellar occultations produced by the second-largest known Centaur object, (2060) Chiron, to better characterize…
We propose that several short duration events observed in past stellar occultations by Chiron were produced by rings material. From a reanalysis of the stellar occultation data in the literature we determined two possible orientations of…
We could accurately predict the shadow path and successfully observe an occultation of a bright star by Chiron on 2022 December 15. The Kottamia Astronomical Observatory in Egypt did not detect the occultation by the solid body, but we…
The centaur (2060) Chiron has exhibited outgassing behaviour and possibly hosts a ring system. On 2011 November 29, Chiron occulted a fairly bright star (R approximately 15 mag) as observed from the 3-m NASA Infrared Telescope Facility…
A stellar occultation of Gaia DR3 2646598228351156352 by the Centaur (2060) Chiron was observed from the South African Astronomical Observatory on 2018 November 28 UT. Here we present a positive detection of material surrounding Chiron from…
In 2014, the discovery of two well-defined rings around the Centaur (10199) Chariklo were announced. This was the first time that such structures were found around a small body. In 2015, it was proposed that the Centaur (2060) Chiron may…
Within our program of physical characterization of trans-Neptunian objects and centaurs, we predicted a stellar occultation by the centaur (54598) Bienor to occur on January 11, 2019, with good observability potential. We obtained high…
The surprising discovery of a ring system around the Centaur 10199 Chariklo in 2013 led to a reanalysis of archival stellar occultation data for the Centaur 2060 Chiron by Ortiz et al. One possible interpretation of that data is that a…
A recent stellar occultation revealed that the Centaur (2060) Chiron hosts a broad disk extending beyond ~200 km from its centre, embedding three ring-like structures (Chi1R, Chi2R, and Chi3R), while a tenuous outer ring (Chi4R) lies beyond…
The centaur 95P/(2060) Chiron is showing comet-like activity since its discovery, but the mass-loss mechanisms triggering its activity remained unexplained. Although the collision rates in the centaur region are expected to be very low, and…
Until now, rings have been detected in the Solar System exclusively around the four giant planets. Here we report the discovery of the first minor-body ring system around the Centaur object (10199) Chariklo, a body with equivalent radius…
Centaurs are small Solar System objects on chaotic orbits in the giant planet region, forming an evolutionary continuum with the Kuiper belt objects and Jupiter-family comets. Some Centaurs are known to exhibit cometary activity, though…
Two narrow and dense rings (called C1R and C2R) were discovered around the Centaur object (10199) Chariklo during a stellar occultation observed on 2013 June 3. Following this discovery, we planned observations of several occultations by…
The Centaur (10199) Chariklo has the first rings system discovered around a small object. It was first observed using stellar occultation in 2013. Stellar occultations allow the determination of sizes and shapes with kilometre accuracy and…
The Centaur (60558) Echeclus was discovered on March 03, 2000, orbiting between the orbits of Jupiter and Uranus. After exhibiting frequent outbursts, it also received a comet designation, 174P. If the ejected material can be a source of…
The 2005 July 11 C313.2 stellar occultation by Charon was observed by three separate research groups, including our own, at observatories throughout South America. Here, the published timings from the three data sets have been combined to…
Quaoar is a classical Trans-Neptunian Object (TNO) with an area equivalent diameter of 1,100 km and an orbital semi-major axis of 43.3 astronomical units. Based on stellar occultations observed between 2018 and 2021, an inhomogeneous ring…
Ring systems have been discovered around several small bodies in the outer Solar System through stellar occultations. While such measurements provide key information about ring geometry and dynamical interactions, little is known about…
Stellar occultations provide a powerful tool to explore objects of the outer solar system. The Gaia mission now provides milli-arcsec accuracy on the predictions of these events and makes possible observations that were previously…
We present the results from four stellar occultations by (486958) Arrokoth, the flyby target of the New Horizons extended mission. Three of the four efforts led to positive detections of the body, and all constrained the presence of rings…